The office door was open and Ann Farris walked in. Hood looked up. She was dressed in an oyster-colored pantsuit, her brown hair bobbed chin-length. Her eyes were soft and her expression was compassionate. Hood glanced back at the computer monitor just to look away.

"Hi," he said.

"Hi," Ann replied. "How're you doing?"

"Lousy," Hood said. He opened a file Herbert had transmitted about Serrador. "What's doing on your end?"

"A couple of reporters have connected Martha with Op-Center," Ann said, "but only Jimmy George at the Post has figured out that she probably wasn't there as a tourist. He agreed to hold the story for a day or two in exchange for some exclusives."

"Fine. We'll give him the morgue shots," Hood said bitterly. "That'll sell a few papers."

"He's a good man, Paul," Ann replied. "He's playing fair."

"I suppose he is," Hood replied. "At least there was a dialogue between you two. You spoke and reason prevailed. Remember reason, Ann? Remember reason and talk and negotiation?"

"I remember them," Ann said. "And the truth is, a lot of people still practice them."

"Not enough," Hood said. "When I was mayor of L.A. I had a feud with Governor Essex. Lord Essex, we called him. He didn't like what he called my unorthodox way of doing things. He said he couldn't trust me." Hood shook his head. "The truth is, I cared about the quality of life in Los Angeles while he dreamed of being President. Those two goals didn't mix. So he stopped talking to me. We had to communicate through Lieutenant Governor Whiteshire. The joke is, L.A. didn't get the money it needed and Essex didn't get reelected as governor. Freakin' baby. Politicians don't communicate, sometimes families don't communicate, and then we're surprised when things come apart. I'm sorry, Ann. I congratulate you for talking to Mr. George."

Ann walked over and leaned across the desk. She reached out her right hand and touched the back of Hood's hand with her fingertips. They felt gentle and very, very feminine. "Paul, I know how you feel."

"I know that," Hood said softly. "If anyone does, you do."

"But you've got to believe that no one could have anticipated this," Ann said.

"There you're wrong," Hood replied. He withdrew his hand from under hers. "We screwed up. I screwed up."

"Nobody screwed up," she said. "This was unforeseeable."

"No," he replied. "It was just unforeseen. We have combat simulations, terrorist simulations, and even assassination simulations. I can push a button on this computer and it'll show us ten different ways to capture or kill the warlord-of-the-month. But the process of anticipating simple security problems wasn't built into our system and Martha is dead as a result."

Ann shook her head. "Even if we'd had security people watching her, Paul, this couldn't have been prevented. They couldn't have moved in in time. You know that as well as I do."